Hiding The Truth

Mama Tried

"You want to do what?" Nita didn't like this plan of Lila's, and she didn't trust this Douglas Reever or his Organization, either. "You can't just go hareing off after some pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, girl, you have a child to think of!"

"I am thinking of him Ishki. This opportunity will put him in the best schools, the nicest neighborhoods. It will open doors for him his whole life. It can change his future." Lila insisted.

"Mama, not Ishki. We're White now, remember? White people don't use Red words. Junior will hear you." Nita chided, patting her short, carefully coiffed chestnut hair. She missed having it long, so like Lila's dark tresses, but at her age it was more appropriate to cut it, and she always tried to do whatever was socially deemed appropriate. Having the right image was important to passing as White, but for truly becoming White, it was everything.

"Fine. Mama. This is for the best. You gave up the Red Road and brought me out of the Reserve. You said it was so I could have a better life. Is this better? I'm doing this so Junior can have a better life. What good is all your sacrifice if he grows up in a trailer court with nothing but little white trash boys to play with?" Lila was firm in her resolve.

"Is this better? Is this better?" Nita spat, equal parts indignant and terrified of what Lila was proposing. "You have no idea what it was like growing up Red. Thanks to me, thanks to everything I've done for you, no one has ever  spit on you on the street as you passed by. Thanks to me you were never called names or picked on in school for wearing Red clothes. You don't know anything about what I saved you from. Don't talk to me about better."

Nita remembered what it was like to be a Red child on a school bus, to have bullies steal her lunch and tease her with strings of beads in the hallways and silly made up war cries with their hands over their mouths and their arms waving about in ridiculous tomahawk chopping motions, to be excluded from sleepovers and other parties because the other girls pretended they were afraid she'd scalp them in their sleep.

"Mama. This job will do more than move us into a fine house on a hill. We can join the Country Club. You can retire and go to ladies' luncheons. We can buy a Cadillac and dress in designer clothes. Junior can go to college, Mama, and wear suits and ties every day instead of working in some hot factory or lumberyard the rest of his life." Lila said. Didn't Nita understand? Why couldn't she see this was their step up to the heights they deserved in life?

"What is this Organization, anyway? Do you even know? Is it the Government?" Nita had an intense fear of anything to do with the government that Lila considered bordering on irrationality. "You know you can never trust the Government. Look what they did to the Red people! They're all dishonest treaty-breakers." Nita would work as a church secretary right up to the day and hour of her own funeral if it would keep Lila and Junior out of the Government's evil clutches. Her daughter had no idea just how evil the Government could be, and Nita had worked very hard to keep it that way. The problem was she had succeeded so well that no matter how hard she tried to explain her deeply suspicious nature, Lila never understood.

"Mama, that was a long time ago. And besides, you said yourself we're not Red anymore. We're White now. Things are different these days. Everything will be fine. Better than fine. You'll see. Anyway, it doesn't matter what you say, I'm going and that's final. Junior is my son, not yours." Lila asserted. Her mouth was set hard.

Nita knew it was no use arguing with her daughter when she was in this mulish mood. But she tried once more, switching tactics, but knowing it was in vain. "What about Tony?"

"Tony's long gone. It's been months. He's not coming back, and the Missing Persons Agent made it clear he doesn't have time to waste on walkaway husbands. And neither do I. It's up to me to make sure Junior has the life he deserves, with every opportunity, and that's what I plan to do." Lila said, softening her tone a bit as a conciliatory gesture. Her chance to change everything depended entirely on Nita's willingness to care for the boy while she was away. She didn't really think Nita would refuse, but it couldn't hurt to smooth things over. She did love her mother. It was a complicated relationship, but Lila knew Nita loved her too, in her own way. Nita just didn't always understand her aching desire for more. More money, nicer clothes, a better car, the right kind of friends. More everything.